


Another Word for Pain

by Krimzie



Category: Sly Cooper (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Blood and Injury, F/M, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:40:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26485057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krimzie/pseuds/Krimzie
Summary: A series of whumpy one-shots for Bad Things Happen Bingo. Hearts broken at reader's own risk!
Relationships: Sly Cooper/Carmelita Fox
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Another Word for Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt(s): "Take me instead" + cradling someone in their arms. Thanks, lonelypalmtree!

_A warehouse just south of Manchester, England  
_ _03:23 AM_

The klaxons wailed. Unarmed and unarmored, Carmelita Fox was out of options. This massive rhino could toss her clean across the warehouse floor with one meaty hand, never releasing his grip on Sly—but if she waited any longer, Sly would asphyxiate, pinned against a warehouse wall by the juiced up number two of Manchester’s most dangerous crime lord.

She had to blow her cover.

Everything had been so perfectly plotted, right down to the 0400 bust. Everyone was supposed to be asleep, and for fuck’s sake, the _Cooper Gang_ was never supposed to come to England. She’d warned him. She’d _warned_ him _. Stay out of this, Cooper. This is out of your league. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. This heist is not worth your life._

He hadn’t listened and now it would cost both of their lives.

“Mason!” she called, dropping the Swedish accent she’d been affecting for a week now and ripping off her heels as she closed the gap between them. She only had a small combat knife strapped to the bottom of her right stiletto, and even with all her strength, she doubted it would pierce his thick hide. 

Mason did not look her way. “This won’t take but a moment, dear,” he growled as Sly kicked uselessly at his stomach. Sly, eyes becoming bloodshot as he tried in vain to suck in air, looked at her frantically, beggingly. 

It made her stomach churn.

“Put him down,” she demanded, pressing the knife into Mason’s forearm. It was all theatre; she barely reached his elbow. If she thought the knife could break his hide she’d scale his back and sink it through his neck, but the best she could do now was brandish it as a distraction and hope he found it amusing enough to loosen his chokehold on Sly.

“Salome! I didn’t know you liked rat thieves so much,” Mason said, looking down at Carmelita with a condescending sneer. “Put down that butter knife before you hurt yourself.” The distraction gave Sly the time he needed to swing his arm behind him, smacking around blindly… for what? Carmelita searched behind him and spotted it, too: a lever for the garage door. Mason was pinning Sly to a _garage door_. She pulled the lever and the garage sprung, rolling up forcefully. Without a stable wall to pin him, Mason lost his footing and Sly slinked free for a moment’s breath but he couldn’t get away before the rhino grabbed his collar and clocked him with his thick horn.

“Cooper!” Carmelita shouted as Mason tossed Sly’s unconscious body aside like a ragdoll. 

As she followed Sly, sliding beside him on the cold concrete floor, the rhino chuckled. “Idiot thief.” He sauntered toward a keypad on the far wall. He typed in a code, silencing the alarms. “Come now, Salome. You know I gotta bring him to the big guy.” He still used her fake name. Somehow it hadn’t yet occurred to him that she wasn’t who he thought she was, even without the accent and the sudden interest in Sly Cooper. “He’s been waiting for the Cooper Gang to make a move all month. I’ll be a hero.”

Carmelita gently pressed the fur around Sly’s slowly oozing head wound. His skull miraculously felt intact, but it was already beginning to swell. “Take me instead,” she said, quiet but resolute.

Mason cocked his head. “Pardon?”

Carmelita held the rhino’s eyes as she pulled the tiny earpiece from her left ear. She tossed it across the floor. It skipped and skittered, stopping inches away from Benson’s boot. Confusion, then realization, then a predatory smirk cycled across the rhino’s face. He crunched the earpiece under his steel-toed work boot as he began to laugh.

“So _you’re_ the brains of the Cooper operation, eh? Always thought it were that turtle.” He snorted, approaching her on the floor. He squatted, mouth still twisted in that foul smirk. He smelled of hot leather and sweat. “You sure had me fooled.”

“No,” Carmelita said measuredly, a plan formulating in her mind as quickly as it left her lips. Deescalate. Delay. _Delay._ “I’m a cop. I’m undercover. “

“Bollocks.”

“Be smart, Mason. You know who your boss would rather you bring in tonight.”

“You’re both loose ends, as far as I’m concerned,” he growled and leaned forward. “Two little woodland rodents making a mess of our plans, and all too easy to dispose of.”

Instinctively, Carmelita pulled Sly’s body closer into hers. “Cooper’s just after the music boxes. I have all of the intel. I have every detail of your operation scouted. I give the word and my team is set to bust this and the main house wide open.” _But he just crushed your earpiece._

“Yeah? And how will you be giving that word?”

_Shit._

“The whole place is wired.” It was a bold lie. She was the only source of transmission. Still, she needed to keep talking as she slowly moved her hand under Sly’s dead weight to reach his leg holster. “Last night, after I bought you and the boys extra rounds. You were all so drunk you had no idea I’d left.” She could just feel the edge of the binocucom in the little red pouch. She could only hope the one button she could discreetly press from this angle would transmit to his team van. “All I need to do is say the codeword and you, your boss, and all his lackeys are done for.” Unable to simply call out to Sly’s team for backup over the com, Carmelita did the only thing she could think to do; she tapped a distress signal over and over. Bentley was smart, right? Bentley would figure it out.

“Hmph,” Mason grunted, looking out of the now open garage door to the compound in the distance. “Is that so?”

“It is.” _Taptaptap tap tap tap taptaptap_. “We’ve been on this case for a long time, Mason. There’s no way out this time.” _Taptaptap tap tap tap taptaptap_.

“It would be a lot more believable, Inspector Fox, if you weren’t sending out an S.O.S.”

She held his gaze but would not stop pressing the button. _Taptaptap tap tap tap taptaptap_. So he knew her name, after all. A sick sense of calm overtook her as she realized this would be how she’d meet her end, on a blown undercover operation in Manchester with Sly Cooper cradled in her lap.

But then, Mason’s gray mottled ears perked, and two sleep darts landed in his neck. There was no way they’d take him out completely, but his eyes crossed as he lilted.

“Throw the com!”

The nasally shout echoed from the steel beams and rafters. _Bentley._

“Throw the com, it’s a bomb! Throw it and run!”

Carmelita did not hesitate. She pulled the com from Sly’s satchel, tossed it under Mason’s wobbling legs, and pulled Sly’s entire weight over her shoulders. It was slow, but she just managed to make it behind the shipping containers and out a side door before Bentley detonated. She collapsed under Sly’s weight on the gravel outside.

Moments later, Murray’s hulking frame loomed above her, the fire from the warehouse reflected in his glasses. With gentle and immense strength he lifted the raccoon over his shoulder and offered his free hand to her. She refused it, watching him hawkishly as she clumsily came to her feet, panting. 

"What did you idiots do?" she growled. _They saved your life,_ her rational mind argued, _cut the shit_. From above, she heard the boosters from Bentley’s wheelchair hissing as he descended. She jumped and cursed as he landed, wired with adrenaline.

"MacCallum knew,” the turtle said, approaching Sly’s unmoving body. “Mason knew. They figured it out three _days_ ago. He was going to gas your quarters tonight.” 

“And your heist?”

“There was no _heist_ ,” Bentley said as he checked Sly’s pulse. He looked at Murray gravely. “We gotta go or he might not wake up.”

Carmelita’s blood rushed in her ears. She moved toward Sly but Murray instinctually turned away, clutching his friend to his chest like an injured child. “What do you mean there was no—”

“We came here to help you,” Bentley snapped, “isn’t that obvious? I replicated your frequency and gave Interpol the codeword. They’re busting the main house now and have no idea we’re here.”

Sly’s arm hung limply over Murray’s strong forearm, and it took all of her effort to not take the raccoon’s hand. “There was no heist?” she repeated, the words catching in her throat.

“And now you’re going to let us go, correct? ‘Cause Sly needs a hospital and he needs it _now._ ”

_They figured it out three days ago. He was going to gas your quarters tonight._

The turtle’s words rang in her head as she looked at Sly’s bloody, matted fur, his gaping mouth. She recalled his face as he struggled to breathe, his throat crushed in Mason’s fist. She pulled her eyes onto Murray but couldn’t say a thing. 

“Are… are you okay?” the hippo asked.

“Let’s go,” Bentley interrupted, smartly using her distraction to leave, as if she’d dare to stop them anyway. Murray hesitated. “ _Now,_ Murray!”

They departed at a fast clip, even as Murray glanced quizzically over his shoulder. 

Carmelita could hear gunfire in the distance as her team cleared the main house, setting in motion one of the biggest arrests in a decade, but she didn’t care. Breathing erratically, she could only stare dumbly at her hands, Sly’s blood bright red on her fingers. 

_This heist is not worth your life,_ she’d told him.

 _And this bust,_ he’d said, _is not worth yours._


End file.
